Erika D. Smith: Black ministers supporting HJR-3 is pure hypocrisy

Feb. 13, 2014

Some 35 black ministers gathered at the Indiana Statehouse on Monday to voice their support for HJR-3. They were brought in with the help of Advance America, a conservative group also pushing the amendment. / Tony Cook/The Star

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When I’m on vacation, I try to stay away from the news. But sometimes I just can’t help myself. That was the case Monday when I tuned in to coverage of the Senate committee hearing on HJR-3, the proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

I opened Twitter just in time to see photos of black ministers gathered at the Statehouse. All of them were holding signs: “We Stand for Marriage. Vote for Marriage Indiana.”

The scene was infuriating.

Black people — of all people — should know better. Black people shouldn’t be giving the kind of testimony that the Rev. Wayne Harris did Monday.

“The Bible binds me; therefore, since the Bible does not support same-sex partnerships, neither can I,” said Harris, of Christian Tabernacle Church in Evansville. “The shame of this matter is not to those who oppose this lifestyle, but the shame belongs to those who live it and those who support it.”

Black people should not, as the Rev. Andrew Hunt III of New Life Community Church did last month before the House, testify about all of the struggles that he and other blacks endured during the civil rights movement to achieve full equality — and then tell lawmakers to deny equal rights to another group of Americans.

As a black woman, the hypocrisy astounds me.

After all, it was only a few decades ago that opponents of “race mixing” were holding the same kinds of signs that these black ministers were holding Monday. They, of course, wanted to prevent blacks and whites from getting into relationships, marrying and having children, even though, as with gay couples today, it already was happening.

It also wasn’t long ago that opponents of interracial marriage were using some of the same twisted arguments that opponents of gay marriage are using today, including the part about such relationships being a sin and going against the Bible.

Why in the world would a group of people who have actually experienced such discrimination and been second-class citizens want to wish the same on other Americans? And if the religious argument wasn’t valid about interracial marriage back then -- something most Americans have accepted by now -- why is it valid about gay marriage now?

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I don’t get it.

But whether I like it or not, this is the reality for many — but certainly not all — black people in Indiana. This is particularly true in Central Indiana, where opposition to HJR-3 is arguably the strongest.

If HJR-3 makes it through the Senate and to voters in a referendum, particularly if it happens this year, this is something that opponents of the amendment will have to deal with. It’s the only way to get enough votes to carry the urban areas of this state.

Yet getting votes from the black community may not be easy.

It’s not just about the notion of gay marriage being a sin — a view and, by extension, a justification for supporting HJR-3 that one could find in any number of small towns across the state. For some blacks, there’s also the singular uneasiness of putting the gay community on par with the black community as a group deserving the same rights and equal protections under the law. There’s also the argument about whether the gay community is a legitimate class of people at all — or just people who could decide to become straight, unlike black people who could never choose to be white.

These are old arguments. And thankfully, at least nationally, they are starting to die.

You can see it in the Obama administration’s decision last weekend to extend full federal privileges to married same-sex couples. Eric Holder, the nation’s first black attorney general, made the announcement. You can even see it in the overwhelmingly positive reaction to NFL prospect, Michael Sam, a young black man, coming out.

Harris, Hunt and the nearly three dozen ministers who showed up at the Statehouse on Monday may never get on board with this evolution in thinking. They may never change their minds about who should be accepted as equal and who should have the corresponding rights.

The reality of that makes me sad and mad — particularly because they’re black.